Nonprofit universities resist taxation with the full lobbying force of wealthy actors

Evidence

However, even with these arguments, taxing extremely wealthy, selective institutions will not be easy, because as we’ve seen, the wealthy have significant influence over tax policy. My reforms would get pushback and be difficult to enact. Once the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect, and Stanford University, with its almost 30 billion endowment as of February 2020, was found to owe 43 million, it pushed back with the force of a thousand furies (or the academic equivalent). Stanford said the tax was going to hurt students by forcing the university to reduce financial aid. Next it vowed to work on repealing the tax or lessening its impact. Wealthy not-for-profits facing a tax increase, like wealthy individuals, will fight against it and leverage their considerable resources in the process. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 339

Categorization

• CANDY: “the force of a thousand furies (or the academic equivalent)” — a droll framing of Stanford lobbying worth quoting.
• XREF: connects to: Nonprofit universities reap overlooked property and income tax exemptions on huge real estate holdings — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 266; For-profit college vulnerability stems from elite higher ed’s exclusionary structure — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 290
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Nonprofit universities reap overlooked property and income tax exemptions on huge real estate holdings — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 266; For-profit college vulnerability stems from elite higher ed’s exclusionary structure — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 290